


on a verse-less song

by ridasverkisto



Series: TMA AUs [1]
Category: D.Gray-man, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Allen doesn’t have a good time in this, Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - The Magnus Archives Fusion, Canon-Typical The Stranger Content (The Magnus Archives), Mainly takes place in DGM with stuff from TMA mixed in, Pre-Canon, Stranger!Allen, There’s just enough that I felt adding the TMA fandom tag was justified, mostly just spoilers for the Entities in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 06:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30068232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridasverkisto/pseuds/ridasverkisto
Summary: Allen was part of the circus. Or, rather, Allen was part of a Circus. And so, he Became.
Series: TMA AUs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213043
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	on a verse-less song

**Author's Note:**

> Brief warning for flensing/skin peeling? It’s one scene, and is talked around mostly, but it is there. Ig it falls under canon typical for the Stranger, but still.  
> If you want to skip it, ~~ marks the beginning and ending of the scene.

The circus has been his home for a long time. Maybe his only home, except that he _knows_ he was sold to the ringmaster, sold to be part of the freak show until he _begged_ not to be.

He had parents once, he guesses. He must’ve. They must be dead, or just really didn’t want him—who’d want a brat with a funny arm? He hates it, but he can’t blame them. That’s how the world works, he supposes.

So the circus is his home. The ringmaster is cruel, and Cosimov is worse, and he hardly ever gets to eat without stealing food. The other members of the circus think he’s a dumb leeching brat, refusing to bring any money in, so they hate him too.

 _Fuck them_.

He grimaces at the props he’s cleaning, hands sore and red under the cloth. Stupid assholes, treating him like shit, when _he’s_ the one who’s gonna get out of here. The one who’s gonna make it in the world, and leave this shithole in the dust.

The circus is his home, it’s where he stays. Where he lives. 

He fucking hates it.

—

If he were forced to say one thing he likes best about the circus, he’d say _absolutely fucking nothing._ He hates it, see? Hates the carnies, the way he’s treated, the sickening performances and shrillness of the music.

(That’s a lie, though. He likes the performances—the way the paint and costumes and sparkle can hide you from the world. The way the performers can trick the audience into thinking that everything’s fine. He _wants_ that. He doesn’t want to be stared at like a freak, treated like a pitiable monster. He wants to hide behind that veneer of beauty, to become someone _else_.)

And—it’s sort of weird, but he likes the hall of mirrors. There’s something weird that hides in there, don’t get him wrong! Sometimes people go in and don’t come out. Or they do, but they’re...different. Rattled. Sometimes they walk a bit weird, or seem shaken down to their core, jumping at shadows. But that’s not why he likes it, not the people.

The _mirrors_ though—he likes them. The funny ones change up your face, your body, make you look skinny as a twig or fat as the ringmaster, make you look like _someone else_.

Idly, he wonders if staring into one of those mirrors will help the ringmaster lose some of his weight, leave him skinny and brittle as bones. 

Probably not, but he likes thinking about it. About the ringmaster’s fat hands left like brittle twigs, breakable and biteable the next time he tries to grab him.

He watches as yet another giggly, disgustingly sappy couple drags each other through the curtained entrance to the hall of mirrors. A rush of—something, tingles down the back of his neck. All of a sudden, he’s just...deeply certain. They’re not coming back out.

Something rustles at the curtained entrance, and for a split second he _swears_ he sees something moving in the shadows. He’d think it’s one of the performers, sneaking back from an illicit break or tryst or something, but it’s— _wrong._ Limbs in the wrong places, torso too long. But then he blinks, and it’s gone.

Fear curls in his belly, so familiar and worn that he hardly notices it. That couple’s not coming out. He knows it like he knows his fingers, his toes, his _arm_.

Better that he keep his mouth shut, and himself out _here_.

—

Cosimov is a fucking bastard. He glares up at the pierrot with gritted teeth, choking back a snarl. Cosimov’s pale eyes glitter with a cruel light as he sneers down, makeup twisting it into a mockery of a smile.

“What’re you gonna do, huh?” he asks mockingly. “You, the worthless little brat who doesn’t even bring any money in? Who _begged—_ “

He cringes away, desperately wanting to be—anywhere but here, anyone but himself. Anyone _else_. But he can’t. It doesn’t work like that.

The circus music hums in the background, discordantly cheerful against Cosimov’s sneer. Cosimov snorts, brushing back the stray bit of straw pale hair that’d escaped his costume. 

“Worthless little shit,” he says, kicking him in the ribs. He _oofs_ as the wind is knocked out of him, pain lancing like knives through his chest. Cosimov laughs as he steps over him, before freezing.

It’s enough that he risks a glance up to see what’s gotten Cosimov’s attention, and—it’s the hall of mirrors.

He’d been right, before; the couple had never come out. He hasn’t seen the strange _thing_ since, and he’d thought it a daydream that’s since crept into his nightmares, except—

There’s a shadow, in the curtained entrance. It’s torso is just—just slightly too tall. The shadow of its arms hang just ever-so slightly off. And he knows, without even seeing it’s eyes, or it’s face, that it’s watching. That this _thing_ is not human.

Cosimov shifts, stepping forward. There’s something stiff in his manner now, and he eyes Cosimov cautiously. He’s watching the thing in the hall of mirrors, expression _strange_ . Something like anger and fascination and deep, horrible _fear_.

He wants to tell him not to go, to run, but—glancing back at the _thing,_ or where it’d been, now vanished—he decides against it. He watches Cosimov walk into the hall of mirrors, and a deep, awful certainty weighs in his chest, behind his aching ribs.

He doesn’t hope that Cosimov will come out.

—

“Would you like some help?” 

He startles at the words, glancing up sharply to find one of the performers—a pierrot—smiling down at him. He doesn’t recognize this one, but that doesn’t always mean anything—the ringmaster’s an oily leech. 

What’s more suspicious is that he’s offering to _help_. 

No one offers to help him. This is his due as an errand boy, as the no-good whelp who spurned the ringmaster’s goodwill to beg to be a deadweight. _No one helps him_.

So why is this man smiling down at him, offering help?

Before he can do more than open his mouth, the man sits beside him cheerily, picking up one of the rags and beginning to clean the props. He’s bony, underneath his costume, like he’s little more than bones. His smile is true even underneath the makeup, and when he glances up at him, his dark eyes are rich and warm with a strange sort of mirth.

“I dunno why they leave you out here to do it all yourself,” the pierrot muses. “This’d be done a lot faster with help.”

He looks at him. The pierrot smiles back, and something strikes him as—odd, with his teeth. Most of the performers have yellow teeth, it’s just how it is—but this one. This one…

His teeth are white. Kinda sharp, now that he’s noticing.

“What’s your name?” the pierrot asks. He flinches, looking back up at the pierrot’s eyes quickly. 

“Huh?”

“Your name,” the pierrot prompts again, still smiling. That strange amusement is glittering in his eyes. “Surely you have one, don’t you?”

“...no,” he says, after a long moment of silence. “Forgot it.”

For some reason, that makes the pierrot smile even wider. His eyes are warm and glassy in the cold winter air.

“Did you now,” he says softly, and before he can continue, another performer comes around the corner, stopping short.

“There you are, Cosimov!” 

He freezes. _What._

The performer continues, heedless of his shock. “We’ve been looking all over for you—I know you like helping the brat, but c’mon!”

The pierrot—the person that _is not Cosimov_ —laughs ruefully. His gaze is sharp on his neck. “Sorry. It’s just not fair to have him clean everything while we go drinking, especially since I don’t drink that much, yanno?”

Cosimov is a drunkard.

The performer sighs. “Well, move yerself—we’ve been waitin’ ages for ya! Let loose, have some fun.”

Cosimov’s eyes are pale.

The pierrot nods, getting to his feet and stretching. “Looks like you’ll have to finish this on your own,” he says, apologetic. “Let’s go, eh?”

He nods, blank. This—this can’t be Cosimov.

Cosimov is a fucking _bastard_ , a drunkard, and didn’t have a kind bone in his body. He can attest, his ribs still aching from the bruises Cosimov had given him. As the two leave, he can swear he still feels the—the impostor’s gaze on him, taunting and laughing. Amused.

If it’s trying to impersonate Cosimov, why would it be _nice_ to him? Cosimov hates his guts. But then—it didn’t have to trick the other performer. And the other one should’ve known, from the start! Cosimov’s a drunkard, and has those pale blue eyes that are second only to his own freaky grey eyes. Cosimov is strong and hateful and fucking _horrible_ and _nothing like the impostor_.

How has no one noticed? _Why_ hasn’t anyone noticed?

He swallows, picking the prop back up. Was this—what, to intimidate him? Test to see if he’d say anything? And why can he tell, if the other can’t?

...maybe he’s getting ahead of himself. The ringmaster will probably notice, and it can’t just be him that sees the difference. It’s probably a cruel joke, too—and that, more than anything else, helps him relax. A cruel joke to make him drop his guard, and then turn it against him? It’s very much Cosimov’s style.

That’s what it must be. A joke.

—

As the days pass into weeks, he realizes with a creeping sense of horror that it’s not a joke. They—everyone—think that the impostor’s really Cosimov. 

And every time it happens in front of him, he can feel the impostor’s eyes on him, _daring_ him to say a word. Taunting him. 

He just...doesn’t get how anyone can mistake this strange new person for Cosimov, even if he wears his name. 

What’s worse is that the impostor makes it a point to be friendly. Reaches out, helps him with his tasks, shares his food. It’s confusing, and leaves him with a twisting, unsettled feeling in his belly. He...likes this new Cosimov, even past the mind-games and horribleness. He likes having help, having a kind voice and hand nearby even if it’s skin deep and so, _so fake_ that it makes his skin crawl—

Unwillingly, unwittingly, he settles. Grows comfortable.

He watches as Cosimov helps two men—new strongmen, looks like (what happened to the old ones?)—move a red keyboard thing into one of the tents. The circus has been growing recently, too; they’ve had bigger audiences, which means that the ringmaster’s been getting greedy and getting new performers for new acts, hoping to rake in as much money as possible.

There’s also that weird new pierrot, with the old, thin dog, who keeps stealing the show. The weirdo.

He avoids the hall of mirrors, now. Dread sits heavy in his throat whenever he looks at the cheerful pinstripes. People who go in there don’t always come out. And if they do—have they always been replaced? Has he just never known them well enough to tell?

(What’s hiding in there?)

The impostor catches him watching and smiles brightly, vapidly at him. His teeth are just this side of too sharp, behind the pierrot makeup’s painted smile. Uncanny.

He turns away sharply, fear burning like acid in his throat.

Better not to know.

—

He wants to say he stiffens as a heavy arm drapes itself over his shoulders, but that would be a lie. The impostor—the thing wearing Cosimov’s face—does this so often that he just. Fails to react anymore.

It doesn’t stop the frisson of terror that runs down his spine, the creeping horror that prickles at his neck.

_Please don’t—_

He keeps his face down, stubbornly ignoring the impostor’s gaze, glassy and fake, pinning him to the spot. The props still need cleaning. If he doesn’t clean them, the ringmaster will beat him.

The impostor laughs, soft and strange and so very unlike Cosimov. “You _are_ a strange one, aren’t you?” he asks, sounding almost fond. “Won’t you tell me your name?”

It always goes like this. The impostor tries to wheedle a name he doesn’t remember from him.

“Forgot it,” he responds, short and grumpy. 

A step in the dance.

“Do you want one?” sweet, cajoling, kind. Slick like oil.

“Already have one.”

“But you forgot it.”

“So?”

A pause, as the impostor changes tack.

“Names are like faces,” he says, lightly. Gaze drilling into the side of his head. “A new name, a new face, a new _person_ . Do you want to be ‘ _Red-arm’_ forever? _This,_ ” he gestures at him, “forever?”

He doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t still. He _doesn’t._ But that doesn’t mean that the impostor’s words don’t strike him to the core. A new face, a new person—he could be someone _else_.

But he _promised_ , he wouldn’t forget his name, and even if he did, taking a new one would be so much _worse_ , wouldn’t it?

A quiet, creeping chuckle. “Think on it.”

As the impostor strides away, bone-thin and brittle, he keeps working. Keeps cleaning. But—he doesn’t see the props, not really. He’s still turning the words over in his mind when the dog steals one of the ball-props, leading him on a wild chase to reclaim it.

—

It keeps happening, even as the dog keeps bothering him.

“Won’t you tell me your name?”

“Forgot it.”

“Do you want a new one?”

“...”

—

“Won’t you tell me your name?”

“Told you already. I forgot it.”

“Wouldn’t you like a new one, then?”

“...go away.”

—

“Won’t you tell me your name?”

“...”

“Oho! Such a glare on you. If you don’t have one—surely you want one?”

“...go away.”

—

The new pierrot really is strange--sad and grieving over the dog’s body, but smiling so brightly and fakely that he’s almost afraid that the pierrot’s like the impostor. The fake-Cosimov. But--no. He’s not. His eyes are different from the impostor’s, a soft, warm gold that _feels_ alive. Different from the impostor’s glassy, empty gaze.

But still. Claiming to be seventeen, in a middle-aged body? What a fucking weirdo. Crazy, too, the way he’s got reality and fairytales mixed up, the way he goes chasing after the ghosts of his _missing twin brother_ \--

As the pierrot scoops him up, making him unwittingly part of his performance, part of the lights and mask that he’s watched enviously for so _long_ \--the familiar fear is dulled by the swooping joy, deep in his belly. And when he pulls the flowers into existence--he can’t help but smile, and laugh.

A show, put on for the world. Being someone else, tricking everyone around him and making them laugh. Forgetting who he is, in favor of who he wants to be.

Maybe--

Maybe he does want a new name.

\--

He keeps getting hungry. Faster than he should, like an ache in his bones. 

No amount of food slakes the hunger, no matter what he does.

—

The hall of mirrors stays dimly lit now, even past the time the circus closes its doors. So’s the ringmaster’s tent. Once, he thinks he hears a terrible, horrible shriek, coming from the ringmaster’s tent. Like someone being horribly hurt, rent apart.

But no one else seems to, so he just--lets it go.

There are so many new, strange members of the circus now, too. Tall, thin men and women, who walk just this side of _not-right_ , a woman who always has this weird flowery perfume on--a man, who always wears a mask. Guileless, empty, same-faced teenagers, with dead doll’s eyes set in strange, waxy faces.

The crazy pierrot—Mana, or so he says—keeps scooping him up, dragging him into the whirl and buzz of performing, the heady rush of being someone _else_. The strange music that echoes through the circus at night leaves him feeling this...dull, strange dread, overshadowed by that giddy joy.

Mana forgets him sometimes, too. Mistakes him for his twin, his _Nea_ , or starts calling him “Allen.” Like this “Allen” is a person he’s forgotten, or that he’s waiting for, and not the dog they buried. 

It’s a mask, a name given freely without conditions. A role to step into, for this crazy clown who watches him with warm, _human_ eyes. It helps, especially with the damn murderous red-head who keeps hanging around. He keeps threatening him, like he hadn’t the day before, and the day before that.

_Hurt Mana, and I’ll kill you._

Like he’d even want to!! It’d be like kicking a puppy—the man’s crazy and flailing and weird, but he wouldn’t _hurt_ him. Not unless the pierrot hurt him first. 

Past that—he just...he wants to have a name. A name he remembers, a role he can play that’s safe and freeing and _not him._ He doesn’t want to be the freakshow brat with the demon arm. Maybe that’s why—

—

“Won’t you tell me your name?”

“...forgot it.”

“Would you like a new one?”

“...yeah.”

“I knew you’d come around eventually, little one.”

“Shut up!”

“Hahah!”

—

His wrists are thin like bird bones again, brittle and so breakable.

He’s starving.

—

The next time he sees a couple, walking into the hall of mirrors, he can’t help himself. It itches like a burr under his skin, pushing his feet towards that pinstriped curtain entrance. He wants—

He’s not sure what he wants. 

He ducks under the curtains, letting it slide shut behind him with a rustle of heavy canvas. The mirrors start ahead, twisting and turning, distorting his face into a strange facsimile of itself. Something in his chest—eases. He’s missed the mirrors, the way they meant he didn’t have to look at himself, not really.

He keeps walking, following the soft echo of footsteps deeper, deeper, _deeper_ into the hall. The mirrors twist and sway around him, casting unrecognizable reflections. 

He isn’t sure how long he walks for. He keeps going.

The mirrors seem to laugh.

He keeps walking. Walking and walking and walking—deeper and deeper. Mirrors upon mirrors, smoke and fairy lights.

_(Where am I?)_

He’s not alone.

There is strange music, echoing through the hall.

_(...who am I?)_

Something cold curls in his chest, but he can’t tell what it is.

The mirrors twist, pulling him deeper.

There is strange music.

( _What is this place?)_

He stops, as a strange figure steps in front of him, smiling brightly and strangely. 

He doesn’t know this person. He _does_ know this person.

They are-not and are, strange and unknown and beautiful.

_(What is my name? I can’t recall.)_

“Hello, little one. We’re so glad you’re here!”

His right arm aches bitterly. The person’s eyes are dark and glassy and empty, like a doll wearing another person’s face.

“Where is here?”

Laughter, bright and twisted.

“I don’t know, isn’t it lovely? Won’t you join us?”

He looks up at the stranger. 

“I—“

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

There is strange music, echoing through the halls, through his mind, rattling in his ears. 

He nods.

They walk.

Eventually, they come to a stage, in the center of the hall. Brilliant lights cast the stage into stark contrast, shadows deep behind the sole figure in centerstage. 

They’re dressed like a ringmaster.

_That’s not the ringmaster_.

He blinks, shaking his head as if to knock the thought loose. What ringmaster? There’s one ahead—and clearly they are one, acting as one. Playing the role. The thought strikes him as strange, but then. All thoughts are. 

There are figures loitering in the wings, shivering with delight. And—in the audience, standing huddled against each other, are two figures. They’re afraid, he knows, and he can’t understand why but it tastes sweet and strange on his tongue. The Ringmaster laughs, high and sweet and fake, and the thought falls away as his attention is drawn to her.

Her face is partly obscured by her hat, but he can see her hands—white gloves, holding her cane, as she tilts her head back to look at the pair. The fear in the air shimmers like powdered silver, fine and cloying and deadly.

“Welcome!” She says, bright and fake and happy. “We are _so_ happy to have you here.”

He is welcomed.

“You’ve gotten a very special invitation,” says the woman, in her thick, strange accent. “We can’t let you leave, I’m afraid. But don’t worry!” one of the pair squeaks shrilly in terror. “We’ll make good use of you! Every last bit.”

She draws off her hat, dipping into a grandiose bow. As she straightens back up, she meets his eyes, and he can see now that she is wearing a mask. It’s stitched onto her face, powdered with rosy blush and painted into a brilliant smile. The mask is a face, with skin and holes for her eyes.

_He_ wants a face. A mask. 

A name.

He is terribly afraid. But he _wants_ so desperately.

She smiles at him, a horribly lovely twisted mockery of a smile. “And welcome,” she adds, excited and so deeply satisfied that he can feel it in his teeth, “to our newest member.”

The person beside him pats his shoulder. He trembles.

He is ushered forward, past the couple, up close to the Ringmaster. She smiles at him, glassy doll’s eyes fake and empty and wrong, and he stares back. The air is thick and strange and afraid. She creaks, twisting eerily, holding his gaze. 

“Yes,” she hums, cheerfully. “You’ll be a wonderful fit, darling! You could be a dancer—or a singer—or even a musician,” she straightens up, considering him. “What do you think?” Something in him twitches at the thought of music. At the thought of keys under his fingers, like old friends. She smiles at him, secretively. “We can always use another musician, darling. Why don’t you follow Cosimov? He’ll show you your role!”

He pauses, very aware of the two behind him. Their fear is sweet, cloying on his tongue. The person behind him isn’t Cosimov. But he isn’t anyone, and isn’t that why he came? Why he entered this place, beyond his terror?

The Ringmaster smiles broadly at him. It stretches grotesquely at the stitches on her face. “Enjoy yourself,” she says so sweetly, blank and teeth sharp. “You’ve a role in our great show, after all!”

He does. He is.

He blinks, and he’s in front of the red cased keyboard from before. _A calliope_ , a soft voice in the back of his head murmurs. It’s not his own. There are words etched into its case.

He cannot read them, and yet he knows what they say.

_Be still, for there is strange music._

That’s right, isn’t it? He’s the musician. A stranger in his own skin, and to everyone else too.

He is so terribly afraid, and yet this feels nothing but horribly _right_.

—

They are preparing for a grand show. A brilliant, wonderful Dance. His normal chores are broken up by rehearsing now, helping the choir and the performers and the Ringmaster. He isn’t missed, for those chores he never finishes--others simply fill them in, without even seeming to think about it. 

The strange pierrot won’t leave him be. Teaching him those strange letters, pulling him away from the Circus--

Sometimes, it feels as if he’s surfacing from deep water, Mana dragging him from it with a smile and a laugh. Calling him a name that isn’t his, giving him another role to slip into, another skin to wear. “Allen.”

The strange music never really leaves his ears, these days. It echoes and rattles around in his head, notes singing in his mind when they’re not being breathed to life by his hands. The song that Mana sings hushes the music, though--the eerie sounds of the pipes calling out hushed by the lullaby that feels bone-deep familiar in ways he can’t place.

The show is very important, though, he knows that much--he can’t let himself be distracted, because they have to do it _right_ . He just can’t figure out _why_. So he asks.

“What is The Dance for?” he asks, looking at not-Cosimov, whose strange, unreal dark eyes stare back at him from waxy pale skin. Not-Cosimov tilts their head.

“To bring about the Unknowing,” they say. “To make all that is known, unknown, and to free us all, setting all loose from their chains of being. All shall be a role to fill, and nothing shall be recognized.”

He--doesn’t get it. 

He’s not supposed to, he supposes. The words sing to him, though, resonating with something deep in him. Not-Cosimov laughs, smile stretching their face strangely. Too many teeth, gleaming bone-white. “We’ll be singing and Dancing soon, never worry,” not-Cosimov says, eyes glassy and gleaming. “And the tyranny of being known will forever be undone.”

\---

The Ringmaster, he finds, both loves and hates his arm. So much as the Ringmaster can, really. Emotions are part of the show, the grandeur and sparkle, so the Ringmaster trades them out like glittering costumes.

Her fingers are cold and stiff as she prods at his arm, peering curiously at the scaly red skin and the glittering green crystal on the back of his hand. It _burns_ where she touches him. Angry.

She hums, tapping the crystal with a single cold finger, and pain lights up down his arm like fire. He flinches, choking down a cry, and she looks back at him.

“Your arm’s a very good tool,” she says brightly, coldly. “Not very nice to us, and not a good dancer—but it can learn! I think it really does want to stay with you.”

He blinks up at her, eyes wet. She nods. “Mmhm! Or else you’d have been twisted, like one of those fleshy butchers, warped and twisted and all out of your skin and roles,” she sounds mournful. “It’s such a waste of good skin.”

He blinks. Nods. If you’re going to use someone, kill someone—every bit should go to use. Even if someone dies they shouldn’t just be left to waste; that’s what the Ringmaster says. She smiles at him, trailing those cold fingers over his arm, leaving burning trails of agony.

“I’m so glad we recruited you,” she says, and something icy and warm swells in his chest. He’s _wanted_ . She’s glad to _have him._ “You’re such a good player—we’ll have to find you a proper suit! Maybe even help you peel this one off, in little pieces.” Her teeth are very white, and very sharp. “You’ll be No One _and_ someone else, doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

It does. Something in him just... _longs_ for it.

It also leaves him terribly, terribly afraid. But he’s used to that, anyway.

~~

Slowly, the Ringmaster starts taking pieces of his skin.

It _hurts_ , when she cuts his skin open so delicately and then rips up the patch, peeling it away from tender flesh. It’s like fire and ice, torturous--but each time, he feels...less. More. His roles slip over him like oil, slicking over him and submerging him into them so _easily_ , more so with every patch of skin she peels off of him.

He’s the Musician, and ‘Allen’. 

He comes to realize what it is, eventually. With the easy intuition that he understands the music, that he is coming to understand the fervor for the Dance with. He was a Someone--but with each patch of skin, the Ringmaster is helping him. Peeling away that knowing, making him unknown, a No One to all the better slip into his roles and revel in the glory of the Unknown.

A tiny part of his mind quails at the realization, screaming, but the greater part glories in it.

No longer is he a Someone, no longer is he “Red-arm.” No longer is he a freak orphan, sold away.

He’s No One, stepping into his roles to serve the Unknown, to aid in the Dance. The terrible, terrible glory of the Stranger looms large in his mind. 

He understands the urge to unmake the Known, now.

Every trip away with Mana where he becomes ‘Allen’ becomes less and less a breath of air, and more of a step into a new costume, a new skin. ‘Allen’ is not the Musician, and the Musician is not ‘Allen’, for ‘Allen’ cannot play the Calliophone, and the Musician cannot be Mana’s son.

Not-Cosimov watches him with something approaching pride, all while the Ringmaster coos over his skin, thin and fragile and pretty in her cold hands. He is Becoming, and he can’t find it in himself to feel the horror that screams in the back of his mind.

It’s glorious.

~~

“...What’re you doing so close to Mana, brat?” 

Red hair, green eyes. A gun, levelled between his eyes.

“I’ll kill you.”

How _funny_. Can he even be killed anymore? In ways that matter?

Can you kill a No One?

A breath. The man lowers the gun, turning away. “Get out of my sight, before I change my mind.”

He walks away, hearing Mana’s voice from beyond the treeline. The Musician falls away, and ‘Allen’ takes its place, blank cheer falling into the gruff grouchiness of the boy that Mana called ‘Allen’.

They’re very close, now. The Ringmaster’s special costume is close to being done, and the Choir has been growing, learning the songs with the Musician playing along. So close. There is nothing but joy in his chest, at the thought of the world being undone, of the Known being Unknown.

\---

His dreams are strange, dark, and murky.

There’s Someone in his dreams, tall and shadowy, peering out from a mirrored lake in the moonlit night. _Foolish boy_ , it tells him, eyes pale and glowing.

There’s Something in his dreams, white and draping and comforting, wrapping around his shoulders. It doesn’t want to leave, it tells him, grasping onto what little of him is yet to Become. It wants to hold him close and together, warm and soft and comforting, a Weapon with a Purpose that has turned from it to hold him.

The Someone and the Something are being pulled into his Becoming, they tell him. As he Becomes No One, their edges are pulled into it with him. He was already given to this sort of Becoming, but not _this way_. The Someone tastes of Blood and Lies, when he listens, but the Something sings of the Unknown and of the thrill of the Chase.

His Becoming doesn’t hurt them, but they turn ever closer to becoming more what they are not, to sliding down the slope with him.

He doesn’t understand why they don’t want that.

The Someone sighs. _Foolish boy_ , it says again, somehow more exhausted. Sadder.

The Something wraps tighter around his shoulders, and he thinks it glares at the Someone. _I will not leave. Will you?_

The Someone glowers back, as much as it can. _Fuck you. Of course not._

His dreams are murky and strange, inhabited by a Someone and a Something, both of whom are similar and different from him. The song of the Unknown curls into them, past their trills of Blood and the Chase.

He feels safe, in his dreams.

\---

The Dance will be starting soon, and the Musician must go to take his place. This stranger, not a Stranger, who wants to pull him away from his rightful role, is _wrong_.

The person in the tan coat tugs at his wrist. “Come on, kid, we have to _go_!”

He stares up at them. He isn’t moving. He’s--stronger, than this mortal. Aligned with the Blood as they might be, he’s further down the path of Becoming than they are, and so much less of a mortal thing than they are. 

He has a role to fill, a score to play to the glory of the Dance.

“Let go.”

The person goggles at him. “We don’t have time for this--” they make a frustrated noise, going to pick him up. “Come here--aaaagh!”

They shriek in pain as the Musician steps away, twisting his wrist to grab theirs and _wrench_ it. The bones, the insides, crack like dry twigs, but so much more satisfying. The skin will bruise, but he thinks he can be forgiven for that.

“The Dance is starting soon,” he says, sweet and calm, that strange music filling his ears and his mind and he can hardly think of anything else. “It can’t wait--I think you’ll enjoy the show!”

He drops their wrist, leaving them huddled and cradling their wrist in a shaking hand.

The Blood is here, and he has a Role to fulfill. He is the Musician, and the Dance is beginning. He simply _cannot_ be late.

\---

The Dance begins, glorious and strange.

The world unravels around them, the Known becoming Unknown and the beauty of the Stranger peering through the cracks in the Door.

He is part of calling it forward, the music joining in terrible glory around him with the Choir and the Ringmaster and everything else.

It is beautiful--

And then it shatters, Blood and Eyes breaking the show into pieces.

The Musician--

\--’Allen’--

\--No One--

The world shudders apart, and then back together.

He knows n o t h i n g.

\---

When he wakes, it is to someone dabbing his forehead with a damp cloth. They smile at him with warm eyes, golden like liquid sunlight. 

He is No One.

“Good morning, Allen!” The person says, and something slots into place.

Right.

Here, with this person—with the mad pierrot Mana—he is ‘Allen’. No One slips into the role, scowling up at Mana.

He doesn’t ask what happened.

The Dance was ruined—but that isn’t something ‘Allen’ knows. The Musician knows that. No One knows that.

No One aches at the loss of the Circus. The Ringmaster. Not-Cosimov. The Musician aches.

And the Musician, lost and grieving, cannot be worn. He cannot be the Musician here. With Mana he is ‘Allen’. So ‘Allen’ shall he be.

And so they go—a mad clown and his Stranger of a son.

—

“Don’t stop, keep walking.”

—

And then Mana dies.

‘Allen’ grieves.

The Earl comes to him.

“Would you like me to bring him back? Just call his name~!”

And so, No One is marked by the End.

After all, you can’t replace a Stranger with a stranger. But the Earl doesn’t know that.

—

After he’s found, sobbing in that graveyard, ‘Allen’s role changes. He cannot be the ragamuffin child. So he wears the mask Mana passed him, becoming this new ‘Allen’.

His master watches him with disgust and detached grief, not really understanding. ‘Allen’ is a role, easily shifted and changed. ‘Allen’ becomes skin-deep, kind and polite and utterly dedicated to exterminating Akuma.

His arm no longer burns—instead it hums, deadweight and unmoving and cold, but it sings in his mind, accompanying the strange music that yet echoes in his ears.

He longs to play the Calliophone, to play the music once more.

He doesn’t.

What he is becomes subsumed by the role of ‘Allen’, even as he gains new roles to play on top of ‘Allen’. Apprentice. Exorcist. Savior, fighter. Warrior.

The Something in his dreams sings of the thrill of the Chase, growing louder as those roles become as natural as a second skin over his scarred and unknown flesh. 

The Someone sighs, and joins the song, adding the tang of Blood to it, and soon he finds himself humming the song of the Chase in accompaniment to the strange music in his ears.

It thrums in his blood, Unknown and terrible, and the fear of those things being chased with no hope of escape reminds him of the powdered silver taste of the fear of the Strange and Unknown. It’s a wild thing, and it sinks into his heart beside that gloriously Strange core of him.

He is Becoming still, his Strangeness finding a companion in the Chase.

—

“You should eat more,” his master says one day, long after the issues in India. Long after he’s found his taste for the Chase. “You’re thin as a stick.”

‘Allen’ looks up. Contemplates, even as the requisite words spill from his mouth. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Your arm will consume you if you don’t eat enough,” his master says, green eyes sharp. 

Ah. Human food, is what he means. No One is fairly sure that he eats as much human food as he needs—much less than he thinks his master believes he needs, but he makes up for it, with the way the song in his blood hums for the terror of people confronted by the Strange, by the primal fear of Akuma running from him.

He craves that terror, chases it with the fervor of a thing maddened by hunger. 

‘Allen’ looks at his arm, bound in bandages and hidden under a coat, and then back to his master. “I feel fine…?” 

Cross stares at him, before huffing, and taking a swig of his alcohol. “Fine. Whatever, idiot apprentice.”

—

Cross will be the first to admit that there’s something extremely fucked up with his apprentice. _Allen Walker_.

After he’d seen Mana drag the kid free of the nightmare that had overtaken the fucking circus, he’d known that the kid was—more than he’d expected. The kid had willingly gone back into the tents after a Finder had tried to stop him, tried to pull him away, because all they knew was that _something_ was about to happen. Something horrific.

And then the others came. Pushing the Order and the Noah aside like so much chaff, they walked into the nightmare blooming before them as if they were walking into hell. For all Cross knew, they were.

Cross can still remember one of the so-called “experts” had grabbed him, dragged him back. Her braided black hair had shone in the strange, warping light, and her eyes had locked onto his with a wild, vicious gleam.

“Get out of here,” she’d said, axe in one hand, his shoulder in the other. “This ain’t your fight—you’ll be in the way.”

He’d scoffed. She’d laughed, high and bloodthirsty. 

“Run,” she said again, this time yanking him back. “This place is about to go to _hell_!”

And then she’d crossed some—intangible barrier that left his mind screaming at him to turn the other way, and before he could, the world twisted on its axis. 

The tents had still been before him, but he couldn’t recognize them as tents. The music swelled, and he knew it was music but he couldn’t know it either at the same time.

He’d been terrified.

And before he knew it, it was gone, done, a blazing wreck where the circus had been, and Mana was dragging the limp body of the kid from the wreckage. Sootstained and exhausted.

When the kid woke, he’d seen. Followed. The kid still acted the same as before but—it was just that. An act. A mask, worn so easily and faithfully that it made his teeth itch. 

But it settled, and he held his distance.

Then—Mana ‘died’.

The kid was grieving. 

The Earl returned, to his son. To _Allen._

And when the kid woke up again, that face, that mask—shifted. Changed. Became a mockery of Mana’s own clueless act, polite and sweet and skin-deep, hiding the ragamuffin orphaned child act underneath. Acts upon masks upon acts.

The worst part is, he _knows_ that this kid is Nea’s host. He can _tell_. And yeah, nothing will prove it like the Ark will, but the kid hums the fucking song like he was born to it. Writes in that language like he grew up with it.

And when he brings the kid to Anita’s—she stares at the kid, long and hard, before drawing him aside much later.

“The boy—“ she looks serious. “He’s Marked, Marian. He’s...monstrous.”

He’s not as deep into this sort of thing as Anita is, with her ties to the Institute, or like the Bookmen and their endless recording and watching. But he can hear the capital ‘M’ when she says “Marked.”

“Is there any way to reverse it?” He asks, and Anita pauses. Shakes her head. 

“He’s gone too far into it,” she says sadly. “I don’t know if you’d even be able to kill him permanently, unless you have something else just as monstrous to do it—equal and opposite, to unmake him.”

That’s—not good, exactly, or even reassuring. It’s. Something, at least.

Cross sighs, taking a long drag from his cigar. “Well, fuck.”

Anita laughs, soft hands cradling his face. “I’m more surprised his Innocence hasn’t turned on him yet,” she says. “Most like him that I’ve heard of are...utterly antithetical to Innocence. He should have Fallen, by now.”

Cross looks at her. “And he hasn’t.”

Anita shakes her head. “It’s—strange. His Innocence must still see something in him, for it to have not killed him.”

He looks away. “Could it be affecting his appetite?” he asks. “The kid’s a parasitic type—he should be eating like a goddamn pit, but he just. Eats a normal amount. Still acts like he’s fucking hungry, but after he faces off against any Akuma he’s as energetic as ever.”

Anita frowns. “I...Marian, there are things I can’t tell you without pulling you deeper,” she warns him. “And this...it’s very close. You told me you didn’t want to know about—any of it.”

“And that was before Nea’s host turned out to be...whatever he is,” Cross retorts, and Anita sighs. 

“Very well. The short story is, he’s most likely feeding on some type of...fear.” Anita laughs at the look he gives her at that. “Yes, fear. I can’t say for certain, but I’d say there’s something about the type of fear an Akuma attack generates that he’s able to feed on—feed to his Patron, for lack of a better term, before it feeds on him.”

He stares at her. “ _Patron_?”

“Do you want the full story, or just enough to help you raise him?” Anita raises an eyebrow at him. “You wanted me to keep you out of that world as much as possible. I’m doing that.”

“...fine. So—fear. He feeds on fear?” 

Anita nods. “If he’s not going out hunting for people to feed on, the fear from the Akuma attacks must be enough, for now. You should try to figure out what kind of fear he feeds on; the more you know, the better you can control how he eats.”

Cross snorts. “What, like a vegetarian monster?” Anita gives him a long look. “No.”

Anita shrugs, mock-casually. “If it works…”

Cross groans, thumping his head back against the wall. “Fuck.”

—

His dreams are still strange, murky things, and he takes comfort in that now. The strange ruins and lake feel almost as much like home as the Circus had.

The Something and the Someone in his dreams are part of that, helping him understand the strange song that echoes in his ears and temper it with the wild joy of the Hunt.

The Something doesn’t want him to deliberately hurt humans. Humans who, aside from Mana, hurt and abused him and treated him as a freak.

The Someone doesn’t care, but doesn’t want him to step any further into the unknown, to allow himself to be anymore No One.

So they compromise. The Something leads him with the call of the Hunt intertwined with the giddy music of the Unknown, and the Someone grounds him. Knows him.

It’s prickly, and uncomfortable, because it’s against what he is to be truly Known, but the Someone can’t Know him, just know him. He can accept that.

He doesn’t want to lose their company, not really.

So together, he and the Something learn to Hunt together, and he becomes both a Hunter and No One.

It’s—good.

The Someone has gotten more solid as the years go on. The shadows have solidified into ashy skin and golden eyes like liquid sunlight, and whatever is left of him that can feel things like that is wrenched with grief. Those eyes are all too similar, and he can see the similarities between them.

Quietly, a very small portion of his strange soul mourns Mana honestly.

—

Once, he meets someone very like him, but not. She’s a woman, with stars in her eyes and the sea in her heart. A deep, abiding love of the unfathomably vast, the unending expanse of imcomprehesible _everything_. 

She pushes him off a pier, into an unending sea of stars, before fishing him out later with a pitying look.

“You haven’t been taught anything, have you?” she asks, and he shrugs. The Circus is gone, and he aches for it. “Well. Let this be a lesson—don’t chase after everything that feels like food,” she says, tapping his nose. “Not everyone like us is as merciful as I am. Who do you serve?”

He shrugs. “Dunno.”

And she sighs, and takes him by the wrist. “I need more coffee, before having this conversation. Come, child.”

She tells him a lot, about fear and Entities and gods who take people to be theirs. People like him, even if they’re not usually so young.

A child’s fear is very different from an adult’s, she tells him. Simpler. Most people die, when they encounter the Fears. Few escape.

And very few Become like them.

—

When Cross sends the kid for the Black Order, he’s fifteen and so deep in the fucking act that it still turns his stomach.

Tim’s fond of the kid, for however much that counts, so the last thing he does is write a letter to Komui.

_Soon I’ll be sending a kid named Allen over there. He’s a weird one. Thanks. -from Cross_

He ponders over warning them about the kid’s—not-human-ness. Eh.

They’ll learn.

—

‘Allen’ makes it to the Black Order, short and thin and _tired_ , and the Gatekeeper sees his Mark from the End and screams. Apparently, pentacles are a mark of Akumas, rather than the mark of the End it really is.

As the black swordsman comes for his head, he really does think he’ll like it here. After all, this one’s already Marked by the End, and the Twisting Deceit. Maybe he’s not alone, in this den of humans and mortals and fragile _Known_ things.

His arm hums, and he hums along. Strange music, with a taste of the chase.

He couldn’t be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to TMA and suddenly remembered that Allen has a _lot_ of connections with clowns and the circus and just. Being replaced. So ofc I went feral and wrote this monster in like, a week.  
> I have no clue if I’ll continue this but I hit nearly 8000 words and ran headfirst into a brick wall so. Here?


End file.
